Bio
Speech is a critical communication signal for the development of social skills and language function. Autism spectrum disorders affect 1 in 88 school-age children and are characterized by deficits in social communication and language skills, and many of these individuals also experience speech perception difficulties. My primary research goals are to understand the brain bases of social communication and language impairments in children with ASD, and to describe neural changes associated with remediation of these behavioral deficits. The theoretical framework that motivates my work is that impaired perception and neural decoding of speech impact social skill and language development in many children with ASD. Moreover, I believe that a grasp of these relationships is central to understanding the etiology of these disorders and will provide insight into their remediation.

I have initiated a program of research to further our understanding of auditory brain function serving key elements of speech perception in children with ASD. The first study produced by this program of research was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and shows that children with ASD have weak brain connectivity between voice-selective regions of cortex and the distributed reward circuit and amygdala. Moreover, the strength of these speech-reward brain connections predicts social communication abilities in these children. These results provide novel support for the hypothesis that deficits in representing the reward value of social stimuli, including speech, impede children with ASD from actively engaging with these stimuli and consequently impair social skill development. My future research will leverage this finding by probing this aberrant brain circuit in detailed explorations of speech perception in children with ASD. An important component of my future research is to explore neural plasticity associated with training programs designed to ameliorate social communication deficits in children with ASD, with a focus on the speech-reward brain circuit identified in my recent publication. In addition to my interest in studying social communication and language impairments in children with ASD, my research program also includes investigating the relationship between speech perception impairments and phonological and reading difficulties in children with reading disorders (RD). This work is a continuation of my dissertation work, which examined neural decoding of temporal features in speech in children with RD.

Current Research and Scholarly Interests
My research is focused on attaining a better understanding of the initiation, maintenance, and progression of tumors, and their response to current therapies toward improving future treatment strategies. In this effort, I employ tools from functional genomics, computational biology, molecular genetics, and mouse models.

Clinically, I specialize in the care of patients with lymphomas, working on translating our findings in prospective cancer clinical trials.

Current Research and Scholarly Interests
I refer you to my web page for detailed list of interests, projects and publications. In addition to pressing the link here, you can search "Russ Altman" on http://www.google.com/

Current Research and Scholarly Interests
The overall objective of the Alvira Laboratory is to elucidate the mechanisms that promote postnatal lung development and repair, by focusing on three main scientific goals: (i) identification of the signaling pathways that direct the transition between the saccular and alveolar stages of lung development; (ii) exploration of the interplay between postnatal vascular and alveolar development; and (iii) determination of developmentally regulated pathways that mediate lung repair after injury.

Current Research and Scholarly Interests
My laboratory studies the strategies pathogens utilize to colonize and subvert the epithelial barrier. We have focused on the epithelial junctions as a target for bacterial pathogens, since the cell-cell junctions serve as both a barrier to infection and also a major control site for epithelial function. In particular, we are interested in how the gastric pathogen Helicobater pylori may cause cancer by interfering with cell signaling at the epithelial junctions. We are also studying how various bacteria cross and invade the epithelium. For example, we recently found that Listeria monocytogenes targets a specialized subset of cell-cell junctions at the tip of the intestinal villi to find its receptor for invasion. We are interested in determining whether this mode of gastrointestinal invasion of the epithelium is also used by other gastrointestinal pathogens.

Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Dr. Anand is a translational clinical researcher who pioneered research on the endocrine-metabolic stress responses of infants undergoing surgery and developed the first-ever scientific rationale for pain perception in early life. This provided a framework for newer methods of pain assessment, numerous clinical trials of analgesia/anesthesia in newborns, infants and older children. His research focus over the past 30+ years has contributed fundamental knowledge about pediatric pain/stress, long-term effects of pain in early life, management of pain, mechanisms for opioid tolerance and withdrawal. Current projects in his laboratory are focused on developing biomarkers for repetitive pain/stress in critically ill children and the mechanisms underlying sedative/anesthetic neurotoxicity in the immature brain. He designed and directed many randomized clinical trials (RCT), including the largest-ever pediatric analgesia trial studying morphine therapy in ventilated preterm neonates. He has extensive experience in clinical and translational research from participating in collaborative networks funded by NIMH, NINDS, or NICHD, a track-record of excellent collaboration across multiple disciplines, while achieving success with large research teams like the Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network (CPCCRN). He played a leadership roles in CANDLE (Condition Affecting Neuro-Development & Learning in Early infancy) and other activities of the Urban Child Institute and UT Neuroscience Institute. More recently, he led the NeoOpioid Consortium funded by the European Commission, which collected data from 243 NICUs in 18 European countries.